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Post by Admin on May 29, 2020 6:46:37 GMT
Buzz is growing about Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s interest in joining former Vice President Joe Biden atop the Democratic presidential ticket, but one of the biggest obstacles she faces is the possibility that her Senate seat could wind up getting filled by a Republican.
Warren (D-Mass.) is in regular contact with Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, and plans to hold a big online fundraiser for him on June 15. The high-profile progressive has also increased her outreach to Biden’s longtime Senate allies, sending the message that she’s eager to join Team Biden, according to Senate sources.
Picking Warren could give Biden a boost in the polls. A Morning Consult–Politico survey released Wednesday found that 26 percent of registered voters said they would be more likely to vote for Biden if he chose Warren, putting her ahead of the other eight women he is said to be considering.
Her greatest impact, according to the survey, would be among voters under the age of 45, as well as black and Hispanic voters — three blocs Democrats see as key to winning the White House and picking up Senate seats.
But picking Warren would likely cost Democrats one of those Senate seats, at least temporarily, if Biden were to defeat President Trump.
Warren represents a state with a Republican governor, Charlie Baker, who has the power to pick anyone he wants to fill her seat, should it become vacant, until a special election sometime in 2021.
Massachusetts law requires a special election to be held between 145 and 160 days after a Senate seat becomes vacant, a significant problem if Biden wins the White House and the Senate is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats.
If Baker were to appoint a Republican to replace Warren, Democrats would need a net pickup of four Senate seats — instead of three — and control of the White House to win back the Senate majority, where the GOP holds a 53-47 advantage.
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Post by Admin on Jun 9, 2020 19:03:22 GMT
Wide-scale protests that have exposed deep racial tensions across the nation in the last two weeks are reshaping the contours of Joe Biden’s search for a vice presidential pick, sharpening the focus on an African American woman as his running mate and elevating the prospects of several candidates once viewed as longshots.
The campaign sees the outpouring of anger and emotion in the wake of George Floyd’s death as a watershed moment that has made the issue of a black running mate a top consideration, two sources familiar with the internal discussions say.
In the last week alone, two prospects who were initially not considered among the top tier contenders have suddenly burst into contention: Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Florida Rep. Val Demings.
Both have been tapped by the Biden campaign to act as leading surrogates amid the unrest and have seen their national media exposure intensify.
Bottoms is being vetted as a Biden running mate, two sources with knowledge of the discussions confirm to POLITICO. Demings, a former Orlando police chief, has previously confirmed she’s being vetted.
The Biden campaign, which has grappled with the question of whether to focus on race or region in choosing a vice presidential candidate, caution that the search is still fluid.
But campaign advisers and surrogates confirm that the dynamics of Biden’s search have quickly changed.
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Post by Admin on Jun 13, 2020 0:10:09 GMT
In the partisan heat of 2010, the death of Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy raised a roadblock to passage of the Affordable Care Act. Long the champion of health care reform, his death deprived Democrats of the necessary vote to pass the bill over unified Republican opposition. Under state law, voters would select his successor in a special election months following his death, and the window to vote on the bill could close. In a plot twist, the Massachusetts legislature abruptly changed state law to allow Democrat Deval Patrick to appoint an interim successor to serve until the special election to allow the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Massachusetts legislators needed to do this because they took away the power of the governor to appoint interim senators in 2004 to hinder Mitt Romney from tapping a fellow Republican to fill the seat of Senator John Kerry if he was elected president. What goes around comes around. With Republican Charles Baker now governor, a leading argument against Joe Biden selecting Senator Elizabeth Warren as his vice president is that, if she wins, Baker would pick her replacement. For Democrats, capturing the Senate is almost as important as winning the White House. The polls suggest they may take enough seats to pull even, with the vice president giving them Senate control if Biden wins. Think of the frustration if losing the seat of Warren would put Republicans back ahead by two votes. The Massachusetts legislature can fix this problem with another partisan workaround. The Constitution makes this possible. While mandating that states will fill vacant Senate seats by special elections, it empowers state legislatures to authorize and set the terms for their governors to fill those seats temporarily pending the vote. By law, most but not all states entrust the governors with this power, while some states have restrictions. Simply going back to the old approach before 2010 does not solve this problem because it would leave the seat open until the special election. Since Republicans control the Senate by a margin of six seats and may likely flip one seat in Alabama, Democrats need to pick up at least four Republican seats to gain control. With the net gain of three seats, they would still be down by one if the seat of Warren were left vacant. While most of those states that authorize governors to appoint temporary replacements for senators who die or resign impose no limitations on the choice, six states require that the replacement come from the party of the former senator. Such restrictions for vacant seats would ensure that Baker selected a Democrat to replace Warren if she were vice president. In Massachusetts, Democrats hold the clear majorities in both chambers of the legislature. They could impose this fix now or after the convention this summer. They could also even wait until after the election, which has the advantage of not doing the unnecessary. Biden may not pick Warren to be his vice president and, even if he did, the ticket may lose. It could turn out that one seat may not matter for control of the Senate. Moving sooner rather than later clarifies this political situation and sends the signal of home state support for a ticket with two of the most popular candidates among Democrats. Biden needs to have a free hand to select his running mate without having to worry about his party losing a Senate seat simply because Massachusetts has a Republican governor. Edward Larson is a law professor at Pepperdine University, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize in history, and a member of Checks and Balances. His latest published book is “Franklin and Washington: The Founding Partnership.”
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Post by Admin on Jun 13, 2020 22:13:00 GMT
Among those known are Democratic Senators Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts as well as Susan Rice, former national security adviser to President Barack Obama, according to the Associated Press. Biden's campaign has also reportedly considered Democratic Representative Val Demings of Florida and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, two black women, and Latina Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico. A name seemingly missing from the list is Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. Klobuchar was once considered a possible running mate, but her popularity may have waned in part because of her past role as a Hennepin County prosecutor whose tenure included the police-related deaths of over two dozen people, mostly people of color. Also not mentioned in the shortlist is former Democratic Georgian gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Abrams had expressed interest in the vice-presidential nomination, saying she could help turn out voters of color in the November election. Campaign pundits have speculated that Biden might deliberately choose a black woman to excite black voters who helped him win the Democratic nomination. A black running mate would also capitalize on black support for national social justice reforms following the May 25 killing of George Floyd by a white police officer. Harris, a black woman, would help diversify the Democratic ticket and add justice reform experience since she served California's former attorney general. Warren could potentially win over progressive voters who favored her many detailed plans for social and economic reform. Rice's foreign policy experience and criticism of the Trump administration would potentially provide a contrast between herself, Biden and the "America First" administration headed by the current Republican president and vice president. Biden's campaign has requested that potential vice presidential candidates submit financial records, past writings and other documentation for vetting. The campaign has reportedly not held discussions with anyone regarding being a running mate, but the campaign plans on conducting face-to-face interviews with potential running mates several weeks from now. Newsweek reached out to the Biden campaign for further information. This story will be updated with any response. Biden's vice-presidential pick is widely seen as being key to improving Democratic voter enthusiasm. A June 1 ABC/Post survey revealed that Biden trails Trump in terms of voter enthusiasm. While 87 percent of registered Republican supporters of Trump said they would "definitely" vote for him on November 3, less than 75 percent of registered Democratic supporters said the same of their candidate.
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Post by Admin on Jun 20, 2020 19:03:49 GMT
Former national security adviser Susan Rice slammed the Trump administration as “racist to its core” and said that supportive senators belong in the “trash heap of history.”
“I'd say better late than never. You know, to serve an administration which has been racist to its core for the last three and a half years, from comparing the peaceful protesters at Charlottesville to white supremacists, calling white supremacists very fine people, all the way through to the recent weeks where the administration has disparaged the Black Lives Matter movement, disparaged the peaceful protesters, and basically made plain that they prefer to stand by a Confederate legacy than a modern America, it's been an administration whose record on race is just disgraceful,” Rice said on MSNBC regarding the resignation of Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs Mary Elizabeth Taylor, the Trump administration’s highest ranking female African American official.
Rice also praised Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) for withdrawing her name from consideration to be former Vice President Joe Biden’s running mate and calling for him to tap a woman of color.
“[W]hat’s important about what Senator Klobuchar said and did is that she made clear that this election, and whoever Joe Biden chooses among many very talented candidates, is about getting Joe Biden in the White House, somebody who can heal and unify the nation, and remove Donald Trump and consign him and those who have supported him in the Senate to the trash heap of history,” she said.
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